“Trump can’t afford to lose.” He has the “biggest incentive” to dig into his position with “more to lose than the Democrats do. This shutdown was neither necessary nor inevitable…. It was the president who delivered the ultimatum: Fund the wall, he demanded, or he’d be “’proud to shut down the government for border security.’” Without an “outright victory,” Trump will lose “a fight that he picked. He’d end the shutdown weaker than he started. And some of his most ardent supporters could well turn on him for selling them out on his signature issue, affecting his re-election in 2020.” Still, “none of this guarantees a Trump victory.”

“It’s beginning to look a lot like a government shutdown.” With little to motivate either side to budge, “looking at where things stand ahead of a midnight Friday deadline, all signs are pointing to a partial government shutdown.”

The Government shutdown spotlights Donald Trump’s major shortcoming. The current President proved “woefully inept at making tough deals…. Trump is an unrepentant, unremitting liar. That makes deal-making impossible. His word is meaningless and his policy principles are murky. He is mercurial and inconsistent. This may well have worked in business, to keep people off kilter, but it won’t work in politics.”

“At almost literally the eleventh hour, Congress has approved legislation that will end a costly 16-day partial government shutdown and avert the potentially greater disaster of a default on federal obligations.” Unfortunately, the deal “buys only a short interval of peace.” When that period expires early next year, “it is all too possible that Congress will fail to agree and will deliver the country to the brink of another shutdown or default.”

John Boehner, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives “doesn’t know how to get out of the predicament. A shutdown is bad; a default on the debt, which looms 10 days from now, could be catastrophic…. At some point, Mr. Obama and the Democrats will have to throw the speaker a lifeline…. But throwing a lifeline is pointless until the victim realizes he may be drowning. It’s not clear the Republicans have reached that point. The danger is they will take the country down with them.”John Boehner, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives “doesn’t know how to get out of the predicament. A shutdown is bad; a default on the debt, which looms 10 days from now, could be catastrophic…. At some point, Mr. Obama and the Democrats will have to throw the speaker a lifeline…. But throwing a lifeline is pointless until the victim realizes he may be drowning. It’s not clear the Republicans have reached that point. The danger is they will take the country down with them.”

Driving “the United States government to the brink of shutting down,” the House of Representatives “decided that crippling health care reform was more important than keeping the government’s doors open. It was one of the most irresponsible votes since the last shutdown in 1996.” The Senate should “reject the entire House package immediately,” but “it may be impossible to prevent a shutdown at this point if the House continues to prefer dueling to governing.”

“If the federal government shuts down Oct. 1, a depressingly plausible prospect, D.C. residents will feel the impact more than most Americans because the city is barred from spending its revenues absent a federal appropriation. Even though D.C.’s budget is largely comprised of locally raised taxes, in a shutdown only essential services can continue. That translates into fewer garbage pickups, no street cleaning and shuttered libraries and recreation centers.”

“Congress needs to regain its senses before disaster hits.” Without Congressional action, the government will shut down next week and in several more begin defaulting on its sovereign debt. “As the sole superpower and provider of the international reserve currency, the US owes a duty to the world, as well as to itself, to uphold one of the most basic functions of a nation state. Flirting with a government shutdown is pantomime enough. Toying with whether the US will honour its sovereign debt obligations is pure recklessness.”